Suffering and Saetas An artist wears her art in place of wounds.

-Patti Smith Art has usually been identified with personal, imaginative and occasionally agonized expressions of suffering. We can think about such people as Vincent van Gogh and Curt Cobain. Comedy is one more area that has been linked with the awful creative too. Even there is a Top Ten Tortured Artists list! While not all ingenious people can be called tormented in any way, much art has been produced by the identifying with some form of suffering. Art is frequently a method of sublimation. Sublimation is when some feeling, desire or reflection is expressed by displacing it into some other appearance. It occurs when displacement serves an advanced socially or cultural valuable principle, as in inventions or the creation of art. Sublimation has been called an emotional defense mechanism, and it is that way in many cases. In the case of violent behavior, for example, sports may serve as a viable opening or channel. In the case of expressions of anguish, pain or other severe emotions there have a propensity to be two major areas where these can be sublimated or expressed profitably in a socially formal way. Those areas would be art and religion. In the religious context this sometimes becomes expressed directly by selfinflicted injury. Devotional acts of bodily-injury may be used for commemoration of the suffering of others, as demonstrations of belief in divine powers to overcome suffering, as redemptive acts, as pledges of faithfulness, as marking of major life passages or as collective expressions of social discontent or anger. They become in fact rituals. Rituals can have many purposes and symbolize many things. They are both socially and psychologically useful. The penitents of Christianity, particularly Catholicism, the commemoration of Asura by certain portions of the Shia Islamic community, the Hindu practices at Thaipusam festival which includes a Kavadi ritual in which people pierce their skin, Native American Sun Dance ceremonies which have sometimes involved piercing and suspension by flesh, tribal rites of passage in Africa and South America and Polynesia which often scarification or tattooing, all speak directly of physical suffering as symbolic and expressive. Physical suffering in these contexts is symbolic of numerous psychological and social transitions, hopes, expressions of sanctity, social cohesiveness and group solidarity. It is not surprising, with most religions containing certain elements to both address suffering and to provide some form of comfort, salvation, redemption or transformation that much religious art deals with this topic of suffering.

It is from Christianity that the mainly abundant expressions of suffering appear. The great Pietas of artists such as Michelangelo and El Greco (image source) are one such instance. Suffering in the Christian background is unavoidably attached to the crucifixion of the Christ. And most religious art of suffering in Christianity represents aspects of this as well as aspects of the sorrow of various saints as they endeavor to complete their divine vocations. At Easter the closing week of Lent is called Holy Week. This week is marked in Spain particularly by large processions of religious people carrying icons through the streets of their cities and towns. During these processions there are particular stopping points which symbolize the stopping points of Christ along the Via Dolorosa as he held the cross to his crucifixion. In particular, in southern Spain the moments of these processional brakes are noticeable by the singing of a particular type of song called a Saeta. What is a Saeta? A Saeta is an a cappella (unaccompanied) song of a religious origin from Spain that is sung during Lent and it probably be sung during other occasions of religious importance. At times it has also been sung in prisons when Catholic spiritual groups visited prisoners. Saetas are also known colloquially as arrows to the heart. Beginning of the Saeta There are countless theories as to the origins of Saetas. Some of them say they are descendents of sung Psalms, and others believe them to be originated by the ancient Jewish chanting. The Sephardic Jewish community has got a long history in Spain, as the Christian community has. The Moors conquered Spain in the Middle Ages so there is also the possibility of the Islamic/Arabic music being somewhat influential in the development of Saetas. There are numerous sorts of Saetas. Some have rhythms that look like Gregorian chants, Islamic calls to prayer, Jewish performance as well as Arabic musical ornamentation. In all the Saeta is often referred to as the song-prayer.

The influences of the people of the Romani (also known as Roma, Roms or Gypsy) culture, with wondered origins to have been in India, are distinguished in the music of the Spanish Romani Saetas are but one small part of them. The Romani are the standard singers of Saetas as well as the creators of most Flamenco music, dance and other related art figures. Modern Saetas take supplementary elements from Flamenco music to adorn the desolate notes. The Performance of Saeta Singers will often address the iconic image of the Virgin Mary as she suffers the loss of her son as well as to the Christ image itself. As the act goes on the singer accommodates deeper inside with an aim to bring it out the feelings of affliction such as pain, loss, anguish or compassion and change it into song. And through music an intelligence-emotional connection is made between the singer and the image to which he sings. It is an expression of the symbolic. Expressions of empathy are most significantly identified with the crucifixion of the Christ. Words of the Saeta are poetic and deep. Obviously, the theme of the songs is the Jesus Christs passion and death, this Francisco Moreno Galvans letter which was recorded in 1974 by Diego Clavel, is an example:

Llevarla poquito a poco, Capataz, cortito el paso Porque se ajoga de pena, Y lleva los ojos rasos De lgrimas como perlas. (...) Lo bajaron del madero Y en sbanas lo pusieron, Su cuerpo descoloro, Su madre pregunta al cielo: Qu delito ha cometo?

http://www.flamenco-world.com/magazine/about/saeta/esaet.htm

The Marcha
In Easter time, we can found some silent processions, with no musical accompaniment, others of them have a cappella choirs or wind quartets. But many, and especially, those associated to poorest neighborhoods in history, bring out a drum and trumpet band behind the image of Christ and a brass band behind the Virgin, which usually play hymns or marchas from a standard repertoire. Those linked with the images of Christ are often memorial service naturally, while those associated with the Virgin are more festive. At first, each procession leaves its residence church (an event known as the salida), and then it returns (the entrada). Its a traditional fact that origin people improvised flamenco-style songs in the crowd or from a balcony along the route. Marchas are musical compositions which accompany the majority of the processions. A lot of them are beautiful pieces of music, such as: - Marchas de cabecera: Concierto de Aranjuez and Nabuco. - Marchas de Cristo: Luz de Jerusalem and Sagrada Oracin. - Marchas de palio: Amargura and La Madrug.